As media outlets have been reporting, tensions in France continue to mount--particularly among students and other young people--in response to a controversial labor law that would make it easier for French employers to hire and fire young workers.

To begin with, it's important to note that one should not overstate any parallels between the French labor market and American labor market. France has long adopted socialist-style labor policies, which have effectively meant fewer hours of work for French employees (by as much as 28%). But the idea here than young people are the ones protesting these laws--and drawing substantial media and political attention and even winning important concessions--is encouraging for any who think that youth should be encouraged to live in democracies not just in some far-off future, but also in the here and now...
The problem may be that what the French legislature is proposing is actually what's best for young people and the country as a whole afterall, even if a million students are protesting in the street. The idea here is that the labor reform laws would allow employers to have much more fluidity in hiring and firing young workers within the first year or two of their employment based on their effectiveness, and that no longer will low-performing workers be sheltered by rigid tenure-type systems. Does this sound familiar within the context of the present day American education reform debate? Without coming down on one side or another, see if you can note any similarities between the French controversy and this one.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NBC premiered a new (ish) show called "Teachers" last night at 8:30 est. How did it stack up against other Our Education Blog favorites?

I'll rate the show (at least the pilot episode) on two different scales: humor, and "impact on schools" (since, after all, the show may actually change people's thoughts and assumptions about the teaching profession, schools, etc. like Boston Public did). On a humor level, I can't say that I laughed that much... and I'm not shy when it comes to laughter. The opening scene, for instance, started with two teachers playing a game of golf during a free period, and when one of their shots landed in a math classroom (where class was actually taking place, mind you), the two teachers waltzed in and continued their game with not-so-clever lines like "this is a geometry class right? how much force should I use to hit this sphere through that rectangle (door) to get it over that water fountain hazard?"

On an "impact on schools" level, I think the show may have some interesting effects - assuming it doesn't get canceled in the next few weeks. For starters, maybe it'll help build community among teachers who can relate to the stresses, peer-interactions, student-interactions, and quirks of the job. Or maybe it will be bad because students who watch it will see even more how teachers are just ordinary human beings with flaws also, further undermining the prestige of the profession in youth eyes. Bottom line is, I don't really know - but I do encourage any of you students or teachers out there who did watch the show to chime in with what you think. Post a comment or send me an email (aaron@oured.org) and we can post your thoughts up on Our Education blog.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Contributing another sad chapter to an already bleak story, on Friday we learned that students displaced by Hurricane Katrina and now living in Texas scored considerably worse than their Texan-student counterparts on the Texas Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (TASK) test. Putting aside whether the TASK test is a robust measure of student achievement or even whether the "bar has been lowered" by decreasing the test's cut scores, a depressingly small 58% of displaced third graders passed the reading portion of the exam (compared with 89% of all students). Evacuees in the fifth grade fared even worse, with only 46% of them able to pass the reading portion of the exam (compared to 80% of all students). These numbers represent 2,000 evacuee students who are in danger of being held back because a passing score on the TASK exam is required of all third and fifth grade students in order to advance to the next grade.

This is a sad story, no question, but you didn't have to be Miss Cleo to see this coming. That's because this story has little to do with weather systems and the Coriolis effect and everything to do with disparities between state education systems (the even more frightening subplot is that Texas' education system is not exactly top flight to begin with). If you look at these charts (1, 2, 3, 4), you can see that there was already a very large disparity between the performance of Texas children on the NAEP test and the performance of Louisiana students even before Hurricane Katrina. In each of the four tests, students in Texas out-performed students in Louisiana.

But the real story is that if all the students in America were to participate in one massive game of musical chairs (say... to Wagner's Ring Cycle or just an extended version of Stairway to Heaven), by the time the fat-lady had sung, so to speak, and the music had stopped, many students would find themselves in a state where they would suddenly be weeks, months, years(!) behind. Think I'm making this up? Check out this quote from Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Graves about the displaced Katrina students: "Unfortunately a lot of the children came to us two and three years behind." Two and three years behind after only four to six years of schooling?! Yikes!

I don't know about you, but I can't think of any (good) reason why a child in Louisiana or California would, as a matter of state policy, need to be less educated than say someone in Utah or Vermont. Likewise, I can't imagine a good reason why as a country we would think this was a tolerable idea either. Maybe a high quality education should be the right of all American children, regardless of where they live (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)....

Posted by Ethan at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The National Association of Secondary School Principals, in partnership with the MetLife foundation, always a leading supporter of youth & education, have launched a terrific funding opportunity for high schools or jr high schools that want to do a better job of incorporating student voice in the decision they make.

Here is the blurb that they are issuing to encourage students & schools to apply for the funding, up to $5,000 that would be used for a youth voice project of the school's design:

The MetLife Foundation Bridge Builders Grant - With funding from MetLife Foundation, NASSP administers the MetLife Foundation Bridge Builders Grant Program for public middle level and high schools serving large numbers of low-income students and/or underrepresented minorities (40% or more of the student body). Twenty-five grant awardees receive $5,000 to implement a special initiative aimed at building better relationships among adults and students. From this pool of 25, NASSP will select 5 exemplary awardees to participate in a panel presentation at the 2008 NASSP Convention in San Antonio, TX. Learn more online at
http://www.principals.org/s_nassp/sec.asp?CID=568&DID=48228

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I had the opportunity to meet a number of young people this past weekend through American Eagle's Live Your Life contest. While I can't reveal who the winner of this year's contest are, I can tell you about a really inspiring high school student I met who is the perfect example of how young people can make a big difference in the lives of ordinary citizens.

The students name is Michael Williford, and he lives in High Point, NC. Responding to a story he and a friend saw on the local TV news about an elderly cancer patient who was forced to choose between feeding her family and paying out-of-pocket for her expensive cancer medications, Michael decided to do something about it. He discovered that most pharmaceutical companies actually offer discounted or even free drugs to people who fall beneath the poverty line, and, realizing that he and his friends could find and fill out these forms on behalf of seniors much more easily than the seniors could themselves, he began finding patients and writing to the drug companies on their behalf.
Michael told me that in the past ten months, they've helped over 50 patients save more than $18,000 in drug costs already! This is a perfect example for aspiring social entrepreneurs out there, as MIchael and his friends learned about a pressing social need, thought about what they could do specifically to make a difference, and began executing their plan with precision. Michael and his friend Carlie are going to college next year, and they'll have the opportunity to spread the program to other college campuses. Here's hoping that they do.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The winner of the feel good education story of the week easily goes to this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the "Kalamazoo Promise". The Promise, made possible by a group of anonymous local philanthropists, provides college tuition assistance to any student, regardless of family income, who enrolls in the Kalamazoo school system by the beginning of high school. Students who spend their four high school years in Kalamazoo public schools will have 65% of their college tuition paid for, provided that they attend a public university or community college in Michigan. For every year beyond the four high school years that students have spent in public schools their tuition aid increases, with those students who have attend Kalamazoo public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade receiving a full scholarship. The city believes that this commitment to education will help attract new people and business to a city that is coping, like so many others, with the effects of a shrinking manufacturing sector.

I think it's great to see a community (well, in truth, a group of philanthropists) show such a strong commitment to the public school system and such a faith in the ability of good schools to change the fortunes of a town. There is no doubt that they have made their city more attractive to potential home buyers, renters, business owners, etc. The short-term effects (as hinted at in the article) will likely be a rise in property values, an increase in real estate development, and a spike in public school enrollment. One can only speculate on the long-term benefits of the program (and I'm sure some enterprising grad student has already latched on to this great opportunity to do a case study on education based urban renewal) but it will be interesting to see how well Kalamazoo is able to parlay the short-term benefits of the Promise into long-term economic stability and prosperity for the city.

In the spirit of offering ideas to those in a position to put them to use, a few other topics I think are worthy of study/investigation stemming from the "Kalamazoo Promise":
(1) What impact does the promise that college tuition will be available to those who graduate and get accepted to college have on student attitudes towards school (and doing well in school)?
(2) Are parents more likely to monitor their child's education (what classes he or she taking and if they meet college requirements) now that the promise of affordable college tuition is there?
(3) We read a lot about the importance and influence of a child's peers on attitudes and choices. Will the Promise shift entire peer-group attitudes on going to college? What impact will this have on the individual (see (1))
(4) Will there be any shift in curriculum (ie more AP classes, more science labs) as a result of the Promise as, presumably, more students are attempting to take a course schedule that will make them eligible for college?
(5) What percentage of students will return to Kalamazoo and it's surrounding areas after they earn their college degrees? This obviously goes to the long-term impact of the Promise. It seems like it would be less beneficial to the long-term health of Kalamazoo if very few of their newly minted college graduates actually returned to their home town.

Posted by Ethan at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the things we don't get to write much about is how grateful we are to the individuals, private foundations, and corporations who believe in Our Education's cause and support our work. One of these supporters is American Eagle Outfitters, the clothing company that markets largely to junior high, high school and college aged youth.

American Eagle donated $25,000 to support Our Education's work - a big chunk of which went to building our www.OurEd.org. They did so through their Live Your LIfe contest, a cool young initiative that invests in six people each year to help them realize their dreams.

I'm in Warrendale, PA now, where American Eagle's corporate HQs are located, to help judge this year's 12 finalists, and I must say I'm more excited than I even thought I'd be! The energy here among these 12 young people who have a vision for how to make their communities and this world a better place is inspiring. They are examples of what can go right when schools in America nurture the flame of education and a love of learning that I believe is present in every child when they are born.

Kudos to American Eagle for doing their part, as terrific corporate citizens, to kindle this flame as well. My hope is that one day, we as a country will commit ourselves to doing the same for all of our children.

I'll post again soon with my impressions once we grill (er, interview) the 12 finalists tomorrow.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Newsweek/Jay Mathews' "Challenge Index" and an Education Sector report that challenged its findings. Today this story was back in the news as Jay Mathews used his Washington Post column to respond directly to the Education Sector report and many of the criticisms/critiques contained therein. Although Mathews does not cover a whole lot of new ground, some of his answers are sufficently enlightening (including his defense of the use of the number of graduating seniors as a component in the index, despite what we know to be high drop out rates) to make it worth the read even if you are already familiar with the story.

I don't have a whole lot to say beyond what I said last time: The Education Sector charge that the index is based too much on a single indicator is beyond a "no-brainer," but for me that does not negate the value of the enterprise, especially as a rigorous high school curriculum has been shown to be crucial to a student's success in high school and beyond.

I think Mathews' is right to push back against any index that is essentially a stand in for the socio-economic status of a school's student population, but his comment that any index that produced a list of "best schools" that did not include Garfield High School in East Los Angeles does give me pause. No matter what the field of research, one should never begin an inquiry by determining the end result and working backwards. So this begs the question: Is the Challenge Index all a matter of, as Pirandello might say, a data point in search of an index?

Posted by Ethan at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A long time ago (5 years), in a land far, far away (Santa Monica, California), I was interviewed as part of a KCET "Life and Times" segment on high school exit exams [author's note: Though I am quoted as saying high school exit exams offer students "an insurance" that they have obtained a certain level of learning, even through the fog of memory, I'm almost certain I said "an assurance"...because, though it might sound the same when spoken, the latter makes a whole lot more sense.]. Fast-forwarding to the present, this year, for the first time ever, high school seniors in California will be required to pass an exit exam in order to receive their diplomas. And though the vernal equinox is barely upon us (happy spring everyone!), the LA Times has already run an article ("Exit Exam Comes Down Hard on the Class of 2006") profiling two students who are in danger of "falling victim" to this new requirement.

For many people, the topic of exit exams comes down to an issue of fairness: It is unfair to withhold a diploma from a student who has attended school through the 12th grade, even if the student has not achieved a level of proficiency in English and math. To pose the issue as a question: Is a diploma a symbol of high school attendance completion or a certification of a level of academic achievement?

Before we go any further, let's get some of the facts about the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) out there to avoid any confusion:
(1) Students may take the exam six times between their sophomore and senior years, and as many times as they need after that in order to get their diploma.
(2) The exam contains two parts (English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics), both sections must be passed, but not in the same test sitting.
(3) The CAHSEE math component addresses state math content standards through grade eight, and ELA standards through grade ten. (According to the LA Times article, students must score a 55% on the math section and 60% on the ELA section in order to pass).
(4) Students who do not pass are eligible for intensive remedial instruction (even after 12th grade) paid for by the state.

Though the test has plenty of critics (and a court case pending), I think the reaction of the students and parents in the article is telling and offers hints that the test might be having its intended effect: to ensure students reach a basic academic level before graduation. The exit exam has been placed in front of them as a challenge and there is no palatable choice but to bear down ("cram," if you will) and pass the test. Granted cramming is not preferable to learning the information over the course of several years in a rich educational environment; but isn't rubber stamping diplomas--creating a sort of Gershem's Law in education, where "bad" diplomas don't push out good ones so much as they make all diplomas worthless as a sign of academic competency--worse? After all, the state is not asking students to toil at a frivolous task--we're talking about attaining the education level that the state set for 8th grade math students and 10th grade English students.

There are at least two objections roaming out there that I want to address:
First, there are people who complain that creating an exit exam will just cause more students to leave school as they realize they won't be able to pass the exam, thereby exacerbating the already terrible drop-out problem. Well, if you believe the recent survey of high school drop outs, one of the problems was that students were not being challenged enough. Is this not a great opportunity to offer these students a meaningful academic challenge that has a very clear and concrete reward? This is especially true if the challenge is laid out and expressed clearly to students in 9th grade and when they first sit to take the test in 10th grade. Any student who does not pass that first time should have the goal and the consequences of failing to reach it explained clearly to them. Two years is a lot of time to turn things around.
Truth be told, though, I've never understood this objection, because I've never found its basic assumption to be palatable: that not to test students and thereby to allow them to graduate on time would be doing them a favor because you are giving them what they've earned for showing up to school everyday.

This ties in with the other objection I want to address, which is that California is unfairly penalizing students for a failure that had more to do with their school(s) or their teacher(s). If we can disregard the blame game aspects of this point that I think have no merit in these discussions, what's really at issue is how frighteningly myopic the perspective that gives rise to this qualm can be. A diploma does not an education make (apologies to Lovelace!). You don't even have to trust your instinct on this one: A survey of 120 American corporations found that "in today's workplace writing is a 'threshold skill' for hiring and promotion among salaried employees." That survey also found that "Eighty percent or more of the companies in the service and finance, insurance, and real estate sectors, the corporations with the greatest employment growth potential, assess writing during hiring." So while we might be sparing our high school students another test, we would be doing it at the expense of their future.

In his 1999 book How to Succeed at School Without Really Learning, David Labaree discusses, in part, how the focus of education in this country has ceased to be about learning and has instead become preoccupied (obsessed) with the concept of education as a commodity--a credential to be obtained. I think of CAHSEE, and other exit exams, as an opportunity to reintroduce the two concepts to each other because, let's face it, it's been a while.

Posted by Ethan at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of the most astute observers of our society—both in colonial times and in our own **— have been people from the other side of the Atlantic. Their perspective not distorted by living “in the fishbowl,” these commentators have offered us a fresh look at our own systems.

Coming off a day when we learned that our friends across the pond seem to use “American” as an adjective to denote “wacky” education ideas, you might wonder what our British friends have to say about our education system in general. Well wonder no longer. The Education Sector has published this interview with Sir Michael Barber, chief architect of Labor’s 1997 ambitious, centrally-driven, education reforms. These reforms saw the lowest performing districts in England able to out perform the national average after only three years. In the interview Barber offers his thoughts on NCLB, teachers unions, lessons to be learned from the British experience, and the biggest obstacles to education reform. It is easily one of the most interesting and thought provoking things I’ve read about education reform in a while.

**Since there is some debate about just how insightful this book is, and I thoroughly enjoyed both this NYTimes review and this Slate counter review, I'll let you be the judge (I, for one, was just trying to keep the French colonial/modern theme going).

Posted by Ethan at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

So often the inclusion of students on school decision-making bodies smacks of that "This is called a budget (b-u-d-g-e-t). It's something that big people make..." and "Awww, cute, honey look! They even let the kids have a name placard and sit in a high backed chair and everything" attitude. This article , which I came across at Education Wonks, shows a British school that is doing youth involvement right. The school, located in east London, includes students in the interview process for the hiring of all its new teachers. Students also regularly put on the "consulting hat," observing teachers during class time and offering suggestions and feedback about lesson plans, teaching methods, and classroom displays. The article is short and well worth the read.

A few additional thoughts:

(1) For some reason the idea of including students in school affairs is something for affluent districts and schools who have the luxury (of resources and time) to give their students a chunk of money to waste spend or that only ambitious affluent students would be interested in taking on these positions if made available, even among a diverse school-going population. While this idea is absurd on its face (and reeks of that "tokenistic" approach to student involvement), it should be noted that in this particular school's student population <gasp> half of the students qualify for free school meals, 69% do not speak English at home, and 65% have special educational needs.

(2) I love that when first introduced to the idea, the article reports that "some of the teachers thought it rather 'wacky' and 'American'." I'm dying to know what the teachers meant by describing the idea as "American". Is it "American" because they thought it was hokey? gimmicky? lousy? democratic? because they knew how badly students were incorporated into American schools' decision making, doubted their own school's ability to implement the plan, and thus worried it would suffer a similar fate? I guess we'll never know for sure.

Posted by Ethan at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

One of the best parts of my job is that I get to interact with high school and college students on a pretty regular basis, and talk to them about their schools. Lately, you've been reading guest blog entries (1, 2, 3, and 4) from a high school student in Painesville, Ohio about the things that go right when youth get active and engaged in the fight for better schools (as well as some of the funny things that don't go so well). But things are not always so easy, and a lot of times there are serious consequences on the line if the student voice is not heard...

I spent some time chatting with a high school student in Akron, Ohio earlier today about the dire straits her school district is facing with budget cuts and a major levy vote looming. I've pasted below some of what she had to say, in the form of a message she sent out to her friends through a MySpace bulletin.

Before you read the passionate plea of her and her friends, though, let me just say this: it is my belief that if her and her fellow students (approximately 80% of whom, she told me, were very worried about the future of their schools and were ready to do something about it) really get organized and make a public showing of just how important this levy is to their lives & the future of Akron, the levy will pass. Parents and teachers will be critical in such a public effort as well. But I'm afraid that until something approaching a more national commitment to high quality public education emerges, the buck will get passed on to local school districts year after year to raise taxes just to maintain the status quo. In the meanwhile, serious efforts to reform and improve our schools will take a backseat to political arguments about school funding and the failure of public education system writ large... and fights will be fought not over what's best for our children but rather what's best for politicians and ideology. Join Our Education as we fight to change this vicious cycle of politics and lip service.

Save APS Schools
ok, let's talk about the levy...

1) the Akron Public schools will have to cut funding if the levy doesn't pass...ALL the schools

2) FIRESTONE HIGH SCHOOL will cut AP classes, sports and the Visual/performing Arts program IF the levy doesn't pass

3) the IB program will be the only program to stay at firestone (besides normal and honors classes) if the levy fails

The bottom line is this: if we sit around and let some lousy facts about our broke school system get us down, then we don't need the levy to fail, because we've already defeated ourselves. Don't just let 17 1/2 and 18 year olds sit around and wish for the best. They have the right to vote and they should! WE have to make things happen, because the adults in our community of Akron, Ohio who don't indulge the arts are trying to become a vast majority. They'd rather see us fail than to pay higher taxes.

Make T-shirts, pass out flyers, protest on street corners, go to the North, South and East sides of Akron, tell your friends at other schools to get active, talk to your church, synagogue, mosque, whatever else to get their attention.....do anything and EVERYTHING in your power to sway peoples' votes.

Here's another horrifying fact about the levy....

4) If the levy fails, within a year or so, the Akron Public Schools will be forced to accept the state of Ohio's funds...that means your school day would consist of Math, Science, Social Studies/History and English. That's it. NOTHING else. The school day would be shortened to end at 1:30pm. What would colleges think??? You do want to get a good job when you get older...right??? More gangs would walk the halls, more drugs, assaults on students and teachers.

Can you imagine how worthless you education would be? How many taxpayers would leave the Firestone Cluster Community, which directly correlates to the well-being of a community? You deserve the best from your school, even if you do get a little bored in history, or if a teacher (or teachers) really get on your nerves. Understand that VPA, AP and sports make Firestone High School amazing. We are a top 200 high school in the U.S. because we are here and we work hard to do well.

Ok, I know this was really long, but if you agree with me than sign you name at the bottom with your graduation year. We really can affect the fate of this levy and signing this is the least support any of us can show...

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don’t know if any of you have ever seen the movie Election, (the book is excellent, as well), but in one of its first scenes, Tracy Flick enters her high school. She is perfectly pressed. She is efficient. She is ready. And she sets up her table in the school lobby and takes out her cupcakes (she is running for class president, after all, so her treats are inevitably perfectly frosted with “Pick Flick!”). And even if people don’t really understand her, they smile nervously and take her scary obsessive-compulsive cupcakes and vote for her.
Today I sort of felt like Tracy Flick, except on a ton of cocaine. It was glorious.

Alright, so I don’t do coke, and neither should anybody. Please don’t get the wrong idea about me.
But I do feel really great about today’s petition drive. I have no idea how many names we took down. 80? 800? I really have no idea. We gave each person who signed a little slip of paper with spaces for their name, birthdays and e-mails, so now I’m attempting to sort through them and enter them into Microsoft Excel. This is no easy task, and I stopped at 56 because my fingers got tired of typing. I have about a million more to enter, which is very exciting. It means the drive was a success. The ones I have entered so far were for kids who are about 13/14, and they have the BEST e-mail addresses ever. They’re hilarious. I don’t remember what my e-mail was when I was in the eighth grade, but I want to commend 00ZombieHunter00 and Big_Booty_66 for their shamelessness and creativity. God bless you two. I love how this program brings people together.
I was anxious about small details that involved the drive and was equally as nervous that this was going to be a failure. And I knew that anything bad that happened would be my fault due to poor planning or lack of organization. It was very scary. But I do know this: the VAST majority of people who we asked to sign did. And how fantastic is that? I have stacks of paper with Chelseys and Brians and their absurd e-mail addresses printed on them, and I couldn’t be more pleased.
There is no doubt in my mind that one day, Our Education is going to make history. And it’s completely due to the genius and simplicity of the entire concept: setting a national standard for education. How come no one’s ever thought of that before? Politicians (especially in election years) make grand speeches about “our children and grandchildren” and “what the future will be like for them.” And as sincere as some politicians may seem, their children and grandchildren are going to Cornell after attending Exeter or St. Paul’s or Andover. I’m not knocking the Ivy League, but what about everyone else? Where’s their standard? And why has no one ever written it down and signed it into law?
I should stop now. I am becoming like Tracy Flick right after she thinks she loses the class president election: hysterical and slightly preachy. A lot of boys in my government class keep telling me that what I’m doing is pointless and dumb, and I’m ignoring them. People always look down on idealists. This is due to the fact that many people don’t believe that good (or really much of anything) can come from change. And how sad that is. Look throughout history and you’ll find that every great leader had big ideas and carried them out while the cynics ate at Taco Bell and watched Lost. (Granted, I love both Taco Bell and Lost, but I’m sure you understand my point.) Big ideas yield big outcomes. So that’s my motivational speech for the week. You can find me all week in a van down by the river explaining some more of my philosophy. (If you didn’t get that Chris Farley reference then I really don’t know what to say to console you.)
This blog entry obviously would not be complete a highlight of the day. Here is my favorite:
My friend Rachel: [after explaining petition] Want to sign?
Boy, probably around 13: I don’t really believe in public education. I’m going to be a lumberjack when I’m older, so I won’t even be part of this system for very long. But I’ll sign if you show me your boobs.
Rachel: [walks away confused and slightly disgusted]
That’s all folks. Have a great week while I’ll be at my computer writing e-mails, entering names into a spreadsheet and eating ice cream sandwiches!

Posted by Guest at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Our petition starts TODAY! ... And right now I’m pretty anxious. There’s about a million things that could go wrong—students who volunteered to collect signatures may bail, we may run out of time to collect, kids may not want to sign it, anything... but being the first petition drive director for Our Education also means that hopefully I'll be able to share my mistakes with other high school students so they will know how to avoid them.

If I were to give one piece of advice from my experience so far, it would be this: find trustworthy people to volunteer to sign kids up. If you’re a member of Student Council of National Honor Society or the Key Club or anything else along those lines, work out a deal with the advisor. Tell him or her about the petition and ask if students in the club can earn hours by volunteering to help others sign. This holds several benefits. The first is obviously that the petition will be affiliated with an organization at your school, thus making it more credible in the eyes of the faculty and students. Also, if you need anything copied or printed up, you can always ask your club advisor. I saved about $30 at Kinko’s just by asking my NHS advisor if she could copy fliers, volunteer passes and actual petition sheets. Thirdly, and most importantly, you will have student volunteers. The way my school’s petition is set up, the drive runs for four days. On the first, (Monday), Our Education volunteers will go to different tables in the cafeteria during lunch periods with petition slips and gum, asking students to sign. I have really great friends who feel comfortable doing this, but a lot of your volunteers understandably may not, so service hours as an incentive will come in handy. The other three days of my school’s petition drive, OurEd volunteers will have tables set up where students can just stop by and sign. Sitting at these tables is boring. No one likes doing it. Offer people service hours, and they will.

Through my anxieties about the week of the petition drive, I really have faith that it will be a success. My goal for the drive is a thousand signatures, which is modest in a school with an 1,800 person enrollment. I really want people to ask questions about the petition and about what Our Education is trying to accomplish. And I want people to talk at their lunch tables about their experiences in our school district and how they could be improved. And I don’t just mean complaining about parking spaces or the dress code. I want kids to talk about federal money and textbooks and class sizes and how these things affect them and their siblings and their friends and their siblings’ friends. And I want them to enjoy the gum that we hand out when they sign the petition. I am terrified that I will buy gum that no one likes.

Posted by Guest at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

So I told you yesterday that I'd be posting up a list of some steps that I took to plan for our petition drive, which will be taking place next week. Here they are - feel free to follow them as you plan your drive in your own school!

In order:
1. Get administrative and school board approval. This can be done in a lot of ways, but I used writing a memo and giving it to my principal, who later showed it to the board.
2. Talk to your newspaper staff and/or the Video Production class (or, the people who do morning announcements at your school). If you give the people a little bit of warning about when the petition drive is and when you expect to have announcements up, they’re usually more than happy to oblige.

3. Get student volunteers. These can be your friends, club members, classmates or anyone else who feels passionately about American education. If you have a hard time finding people, remember that blackmail helps.
4. Print up fliers, as well as volunteer passes and the actual petition slips (don’t forget name, birth date and e-mail!). Have these things ready early, as they can be easy to forget later on as the petition drive draws closer.
5. Catch a cold. Tell everyone that it is a sinus infection, and then mono. Cough violently without covering your mouth. Speculate loudly that you may have Hepatitis A-C. Stay home from school one day and watch Entourage on DVD for four straight hours. Get over it in a few days. (Note: this step is optional, but it’s certainly what I did.)
6. Post fliers all over school, but make sure they’re spaced appropriately apart as not to seem obnoxious or overbearing.
7. Costco fieldtrip! Buy gum to hand out when students sign the petition.
8. First day of petition: in the morning, send out volunteer reminders. During lunch, conduct the petition by going around to each table, explaining Our Education and asking students to sign. Hand out gum. Lather, rinse and repeat for all lunch periods.
9. Days 2-4 of petition: set up tables in the cafeteria with signs, petition slips and volunteers to help students sign up.
10. Friday of petition week: St. Patrick’s Day! You may believe in American education in general, but you do not believe in it today. Skip school, wear green, go downtown, watch the parade and enjoy your youth.

Granted, there will be people at your school who won’t want to sign the Our Education petition. These people are few and far between, but they’ll be jerks about it and give you a hard time. Smile at these people politely. Explain your cause and why they should support it. Offer them gum. If they want to keep on being difficult just for the sake of it, leave them be. After a classmate of mine told me that he was creating a petition that would call for the deterioration of public education, I was pretty upset. I didn’t understand 1.) Why he would be opposed to Our Education in the first place 2.) Why he wanted to be so rude to me personally. Five minutes later I got over it— the kid’s just a jerk and probably always will be. Our goal is to get a million signatures across the country, and there are almost 40 million people aged 13-24, so it's definitely ok if some people say they don't want to sign, better to spend our time on most of the other people our age who actually do care.

Come back tomorrow to read the rest of Emily's pre-petition blog thoughts!

Posted by Guest at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Hi! My name’s Emily Rose and I am a high school petition drive leader for Our Education here to guest edit the OurEd blog. The petition drive for my school, Riverside High School in Painesville Township, Ohio, starts Monday. I hope you’ll follow along as I work with my friends, teachers, and others at school to get the ball rolling on a petition drive, and as I sit here at my computer writing emails, printing out fliers and eating ice cream sandwiches. You may think you know, but you have no idea...

My experience began two weeks ago, when my sister Michelle spoke to Aaron Tang, Our Education’s co-founder and her friend from high school, about me possibly heading up Riverside’s drive. I’d heard of the organization but didn’t know much about it, but after speaking to my sister and checking out the website (ah, the wonders of the internet), I decided to join.

I should start off by saying that I really believe in this program. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard students talking about ways to improve our school but feeling too clueless or helpless to carry out their ideas. Education is a huge bureaucracy and in between the faculty, administration, school board and state and federal governments it’s easy for a student to feel deaf and mute regarding his or her academic experience. And that’s what I really appreciate about Our Education: it really believes in youth voices and leadership. That’s rare. And that’s special and exciting and I would be foolish to say no when given this opportunity.

But enough of that. You don’t know me well enough yet for me to get all weepy and emotional.

The really fantastic thing about Our Education is that it’s something everyone can endorse. This fact alone makes the entire process of a petition drive much easier. Administrators will get behind it, teachers will support it and students will sign the petition, simply because great public education is an issue everyone agrees on. This is not the case for every petition. Here is an example:

You: Hey, Principal Skinner! I need administrative and board approval for a petition drive I’d like to hold at our school. Here’s my idea.
Skinner: [looks over memo] What’s your petition about?
You: The systematic genocide of Native Americans.

Principal Skinner would most likely reject your proposal. Also, it is highly likely that you live in 1848.

Tomorrow, I'll post a guide I put together based on my own experiences (and mistakes) running a petition drive. I was a little intimidated at first, but after writing everything down in numbered format, the entire process seemed a lot less confusing. Lists soothe me.

Want to read more about Emily and her high school petition drive in Painesville, Ohio?? Come back to Our Education Blog tomorrow to read the next part of Emily's entry, including her list of petition drive suggestions!

Posted by Guest at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Hey everyone - I'm excited to announce that our first guest-blogger will be posting here over the next days and weeks. Her name is Emily Rose, and she's a high school student from Painesville, Ohio, who happens to be running one of Our Education's first ever high school petition drives. Read her thoughts and reactions as she plans and executes her petition drive, which is scheduled for next week in Riverside High School. I think you'll agree with me - her enthusiasm is contagious.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm certainly no Biblical scholar, and the oft-quoted verse from the book of Matthew (6:21), "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," is one of the most politically loaded (and perhaps, overused) passages of the entire Bible. But the debates currently taking place in the US Congress about the 2007 federal budget merit the attention of any who believe that education should be an American priority.

According to an Alliance for Excellent Education report, the President's 2007 budget proposal cuts more than 2 billion dollars from programs like GEAR UP, TRIO, Vocational Education, and grants for smaller learning communities. While the proposed budget does add money in other places (largely through a $1.5 billion High School Initiative), all told the recommendation freezes current federal commitments to education at about the same levels as the previous years.

I've met students who participate in some of the programs that would be cut under the President's budget and can say unequivocally that they make a big difference in the lives of youth who otherwise have very little going for them in the way of educational opportunity. One such student whom I met in DC a few months ago, Katie Hill, participated in a GEAR UP program in McDermitt High School, a small school in small-town McDermitt, NV. The National Council on Community and Education Partnerships brought her to DC to talk with a number of business and education leaders about the impact that GEAR UP had on her, and how if she had not had her GEAR UP experience she almost certainly would not be preparing for college this upcoming fall.

A major word of caution though: we do know enough to say that there's not a simple, one-to-one relationship between money and educational outcomes. More money doesn't always lead to better schools, and our country already spends more per student than any other nation in the world. But this much is true: it's hard to make the case that we as Americans--and our elected officials--really treasure our youth if we continue to put other issues (such as $1.35 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years) ahead of their education.

But here's where I want to push back a bit against the common Matthew 6:21 political rant. Treasure is great and everything, but think it's misleading to say that "treasure" always means "heart." Because just as important than the funding itself, I suspect, are the values (heart) that underly the decisions we make about where and how money should be spent. After all, a nation that doesn't care much about educating its children may actually decide to spend sizable sums to do so. But if high quality education isn't actually made a true priority, the money may be squandered on ineffective policies and programs that aren't fixed because doing so would take something even more costly than money: tough, and potentially unpopular political decisions. I submit to you that this may be where are as a nation today... we care about children and their schools enough to spend a lot of money on them, but not enough to fight the tough fights necessary to effect serious change: re-examining the way we set standards and create accountability; hire, pay, & fire teachers, etc.

In other words, treasure isn't enough. It's where your heart is that counts. And as more and more youth join our national campaign to make high quality public education a right for all children, we're finding that this is what America's students care about at the end of the day.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a previous entry, I mentioned the results of the recently released DOE study The Toolbox Revisited--a study that followed a nationally representative group of students from high school through college in order to determine which aspects of their schooling contributed most to the successful completion of college by their mid-20s. I wanted to return to this study not only because it contains some interesting conclusions about what factors do (and do not) affect a student's likely completion of college, but because the report is one of the first I've ever seen that (contains a section that) address students directly and offers specific advice to students who want to give themselves the best shot of completing their college education. I felt I would be remiss if I did not share the conclusions and advice of that study with you.

In penning a section specifically for students, Clifford Adelman, the study's author, makes an important point that's worth repeating because we often don't think of this specific message in this context: students should not be passive recipients of their education. Here at Our Education we often say that the student voice in education reform should be more than just test scores--students need to be involved in the discussions that impact the type and quality of the education they receive. This is undoubtedly true, but Adelman stresses that at a very personal level students need to be pro-active in ensuring that they are taking the classes and following the path that will give them the best opportunity earn a bachelor's degree. It is not enough (nor is it wise) to sit idly by until senior year rolls around and hope that by good fortune or dumb luck, you have completed the courses required to be successful in college. This is especially true in this era of the internet where course work requirements for state and private universities are readily available online. This has nothing to do with being overly ambitious or obsessed with career goals (a charge made against our generation by many adults and several notable publications, the Atlantic Monthly's "Organization Kid" ($) being the most vivid in my mind) and everything to do with ensuring that one's future is as bright and full of choice as possible. And for those who believe that positive attitude and desire to attend and complete college will be enough to shepherd them through undergraduate life, the Toolbox offers a cautionary tale. It finds that "Students' education "anticipations" (the consistency and level of their vision of how far they will get in school) were not significant at any step of the logistic account...expectations are distinctly secondary to one's uses of academic time and to one's academic performance." (emphasis added).

Without further ado, Adelman's recommendations (note: though he uses a baffling number of exclamation marks in such a short space, I think it is safe to chalk up this excess to excitement, enthusiasm, and encouragement and not to any condescension in tone...though #3 is pushing it, especially considering you would have had to wade through 134 pages of this report to get there...but all in all, very good advice! ):

1. Just because you say you will continue your education after high school and earn
a college credential doesn’t make it happen. Wishing doesn’t do it; preparation
does! So . . .

2. Take the challenging course work in high school, and don’t let anyone scare you
away from it. Funny thing about it, but you learn what you study, so if you take
up these challenges, your test scores will inevitably be better (if you are worried
about that). If you cannot find the challenge in the school’s offerings, point out
where it is available on-line, and see if you can get it that way. There are very
respectable Web sites offering full courses in precalculus, introductory physics,
humanities, music theory, and computer programming, for example.

3. Read like crazy! Expand your language space! Language is power! You will
have a lot less trouble in understanding math problems, biology textbooks, or
historical documents you locate on the Web. Chances are you won’t be wasting
precious credit hours on remedial courses in higher education.

4. If you don’t see it now, you will see it in higher education: The world has gone
quantitative: business (obviously), geography, criminal justice, history, allied
health fields—a full range of disciplines and job tasks tells you why math
requirements are not just some abstract school exercise. So come out of high
school with more than Algebra 2, making sure to include math in your senior year
course work, and when you enter higher education, put at least one college-level
math course under your belt in the first year–no matter what your eventual major.

5. When you start to think seriously about postsecondary options, log on to college
and community college Web sites and look not so much for what they tell you of
how wonderful life is at Old Siwash, but what they show you of the kinds of
assignments and examination questions given in major gateway courses you will
probably take. If you do not see these indications of what to expect, push! Ask
the schools for it! These assignments and questions are better than SAT or ACT
preparation manuals in terms of what you need to complete degrees.

6. See if your nearest community college has a dual-enrollment agreement with your
school system, allowing you to take significant general education or introductory
occupational courses for credit while you are still in high school. Use a summer
term or part of your senior year to take advantage, and aim to enter higher
education with at least six credits earned this way—preferably more.

7. You are ultimately responsible for success in education. You are the principal
actor. The power is yours. Seize the day—or lose it!

Posted by Ethan at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I spoke with a high school senior named Sebastian Johnson, who goes to school in Montgomery County Public Schools in Rockville, MD over the weekend. He is the county's student member to the board of education and by all accounts does a wonderful job of it (he even drew the praise of Jeopardy's Alex Trebek when he appeared on Teen Jeopardy earlier this year). In my brief conversation with him about Our Education's work and his own passion for making high quality educational opportunity available to more of America's youth, I found him to be a smart, thoughtful, and articulate young man - and certainly a great resource to his board of education.

His Board of Education - and the Montgomery County Public Schools in general - deserve a lot of credit for the way they have created a strong infrastructure for student voice. On December 6, 2005, for instance, the board hosted a series of meetings with student leaders from throughout the district to hear about their experiences and priorities in their schools. The school district's website, contains a wealth of information about what the student board member does and what her or his responsibilities include, and they even breakdown how each of the schools in the district voted among the student candidates.

In light of a National School Boards Association 2001 survey which revealed that a mere 15% of school districts have some form of student representation to their boards of education, school districts like Montgomery County and students like Sebastian set a wonderful example for how young people and administrators all benefit when they work together to set school policy. We'd love to tell more of these stories... and look forward to doing so on this blog and at our website's Spotlight on a Student page.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When a student drops out of high school, whose fault is it?

A survey of high school dropouts themselves released today tells a very interesting story. Let me try to break it down into three main chunks:
1.) Many of the students who dropped out were not actually doing all that poorly. It turns out that at least 6 in 10 of the dropouts were getting C's or better.
2.) Almost all of them (81%) believe that a high school education is important to succeeding in the world.
3.) A lot of the students (two-thirds) say that they would have tried harder if their teachers had higher expectations of them

So, what does this mean?

I think it means that the high school drop out rate is a problem we can start to fix. And I think the first step to doing this is as simple as asking students themselves about what it is that they value in their schools. I wish the questionnaire in this survey had asked students if any of their teachers or principals had ever asked them what they think about their schools and classes and how they could be improved. Not because the students should be able to run the school, but because a school that really values its mission would want to hear back from its students about whether it is succeeding and how it could do better... right?

After all, it doesn't make sense: more than 80% of students know that education is important, and a significant majority are actually on track to graduate. But they don't. Why not? The study suggests that it's largely because they aren't challenged hard enough and, as a resulted, aren't motivated. I think that's another way of saying that the students don't feel like the school or the faculty in it are really there for them. In other words, there's a big difference between treating high school students as partners in their schools and classrooms... and treating them as objects to be taught at and herded around, or even worse, as test scores and statistics. Students don't drop out when they have strong relationships with their teachers and when they feel like the adults care about them.

But whose fault is it that these high expectations and conversations between adults and students don't exist? Here's where I want to push back against what some other bloggers are saying about this survey. I don't think it helps at all to say that this survey is just kids blaming their teachers and schools for their own problems, or that the federal government is blaming schools unfairly, or even that adults are blaming kids unfairly. The truth is, we all share in the blame - most kids can work harder, most teachers can do a better job of investing in their students, and the government can certainly do more also. But when it comes to making these connections between students and educators...

This is something where the students have to take the lead. Educators aren't just going to change overnight and ask students what they want and what they care about. We, as young people, have to take it upon ourselves and show adults that we do care about our schools and that we do want to have a voice. This is what Our Education, as much anything else, is about: showing adults that young people, high school dropouts and graduates alike, want to work together with you to make our schools the best that they can be.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I just watched the hit TV Show "Deal or No Deal" for the first time this week, and I was instantly hooked. If you've seen it before, maybe you know what I mean: something about mysterious numbered briefcases held by twenty women who all look the same, a bald Jewish host, a banker that somehow seems like he's robbing you even as he offers you huge sums of money, and ordinary people that you want to root for makes this show just irresistable. Just a few days ago a woman with seven children was on the show and I wanted her to win 2.5 million dollars more than I want 16-year-old American Idol contestant Kevin Covais to star in a music video with 50 Cent.

If you haven't seen the show yet, check it out - it's on NBC at 8pm during the week. Ethan and I have a TIVO season pass on it already.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 03:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

For those of you who are readers of Newsweek, really fond of Top 100 lists, or among those who have sought to learn how your high school stacks up with others around the country, you may be familiar with Newsweek's "Best High Schools in America" List, which they've been producing since 1998. Well before you use it to go and gloat to your friends or decide it's time to re-hang your high school diploma behind a tall house plant, you may want to check out a new report released last week by Education Sector that calls into question the criteria used to produce the list as well as the validity and representation of its results.

In order to create its "Best Schools List", Newsweek employs the Challenge Index, which was created by Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews (the report includes a response by Mathews, which can be read here). The Challenge Index score for a school is produced by taking the number of AP and IB tests taken by students at a school in a single year and dividing it by the number of graduating seniors.

Not to ruin the surprise or kill the suspense, but...

After all their hard work Education Sector's concludes, "Our research shows that Newsweek's methodology is far too focused on one discrete indicator of school quality." Let's review: Challenge Index Score = (# of AP/IB tests given)/(# of graduating seniors). Too focused on one indicator, huh? Gee guys, really?! Don't know if I would have guessed that on my own, so I'm glad you were able to do the heavy lifting on the research side. In fairness, the report goes on to argue that not only is the index too focused on a single indicator, but the indicator they have chosen, is a poor predictor of how the school performs in other important areas: achievement gaps and graduation rate.

I not sure it is quite as "no-duh," self-evident as Rotherham and Mead (the authors of the report) say it is, but it certainly should give one pause that a school could be listed (out of thousands of high schools) as among the nation's best if it has high achievement gaps and low graduation rates, even if AP classes/tests are widely available to students.

This goes to their other point--the way the list is presented in the media--which I think is dead on. If the data from the Newsweek Challenge Index were presented in a table, one might reasonably expect the heading to be something along the lines of "Average number of AP/IB exams given per graduating student". That this could somehow be billed instead as a "Table of the Best High Schools in America" is a ridiculous stretch--not that there isn't plenty of evidence linking a rigorous high school curriculum to collegiate success. A recent longitudinal study released by the Department of Education last week concluded that, "The academic intensity of the student's high school curriculum still counts more than anything else in pre-collegiate history in providing momentum toward completing a bachelor's degree." Taking AP classes would certainly qualify as "academic intensity".

No matter what conclusions you draw about the Challenge Index, the condition that in part spurred Mathews' creation of the index remains: a total inability to compare one high school to another across states. Education Sector suggests that AYP be used instead, but this suggestion is completely worthless for solving Mathews' challenge. Since each individual state sets its own academic standards and its own AYP targets, comparing schools from different states would be a mind-boggling challenge (for those of you who scoff at the challenge, I'll give you a head start and still would wager you dollars to donuts (as my dad would say) that you won't finish in time for the holidays (Christmas if you're Bill O'Reilly)). In a time where there is considerable clamoring for schools and education to be opened up to more "market forces," the ability to compare one school to another reliably and faithfully seems like a crucial step.

In an even broader sense, Matthews' exercise in index creation and Education Sector's subsquent effort to run it through with the sharp blade of their research, belies a problem that I believe will only grow worse. In this era of NCLB and achievement data aplenty, we have created an environment that begs for data comparison and yet our system (lacking a standard robust measurement...AYP need not apply) makes this possible on only a very limited scale. In my mind, it defies logic that we would allow there to persist in this country 50 different definitions of what a high school student should know by the time they graduate. That this makes it nearly impossible for the average person to compare a school in Agoura Hills to one in Virginia Beach using anything but the simplest metrics (see the Challenge Index) is just one of the many unfortunate byproducts. But in a country that creates the BCS in lieu of a simple playoff system, maybe overly complicated is just the way we like things. Speaking of which, I'm not sure which thought is more intriguing: a weekly BCS style ranking system for schools or Newsweek, in the spirit of March Madness, appointing a selection committee to create the bracket for a first ever 64-high school academic rating tournament so they could stop determine the "best high school" in the country. Hmm...

Posted by Ethan at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

If you search for the word “Blog” on Google, that's how many hits you'll get. Millions of people, through websites like Myspace, Xanga, Blogger, Typepad, and others now chronicle day-to-day experiences and items of interest to a wide online audience. So why another blog? Let me try to explain.

Recently, I’ve have had the chance to spend some time talking with students about Our Education on sites like Myspace and Xanga. A ton of middle school, high school, and college students out there are now a part of this community, and as far as I can tell, daily musings with titles like “My F***ING Day at School” and “How A Guy Should Treat A Girl” are par for the course...

Then there are the blogs like SlashDot, the Drudge Report, DailyKos, and others which are so popular that their writers can make a living off of web-based advertising revenues—a loop-hole in the game of life if I’ve ever seen one. Even a relatively insular field like K-12 education reform has developed a blue-ribbon list of blogs such as Eduwonk, Schools Matter, and This Week in Education, just to name a few. Though these blogs are widely read in the education policy sector, their entries (with headlines like “Quality is Not Supplemental,” “More KIPP Love!” and “USDE Sells Off AYP”) are often too policy-heavy to be of interest to typical students and parents.

With personal student blogs and education policy blogs growing in popularity among markedly disconnected audiences, the purpose of Our Education's blog is to create a bridge between these two worlds. Because the relationship between the youth who write the "My F***ING Day at School" entries and the ed wonks who care about "USDE Sells off AYP" entries is much, much more important than either young people or education advocates realize. And until they come together, students and ed reformers both will suffer.

We don't mean to suggest that students are experts in the nitty-gritty of public policy, or that ed policy folks don’t care enough about young people. We just want to see a day where young people are engaged in fighting to improve their own schools, and where adults recognize youth as active partners in this process—not just passive recipients. Because when a million students stand up to demand high quality education and work with key groups in the democratic process, we as a nation will finally find the drive to come together, fight through the gridlock of tough policy and resource debates, and make education at long last a national priority.

As she signed Our Education’s petition for an American right to high quality public education, Tiffany Pham, a High School student in Florida, wrote,
“Every kid should have an equal opportunity to learn. Just because of where they're from or who their parents are, it shouldn't stop them from getting somewhere in life. We all can succeed if we're given the chance.”

How right she is. Students like Tiffany have already started to come to www.OurEd.org to join in this shared vision, and many more will do the same over the course of the year. The Our Education Blog will be here to share their stories.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)